Many therapists believe that having a “normal” spinal curve is associated with less or no back pain. Thus, people with too much or too little lordosis are at a higher risk of getting low back pain. However, much of the research in the past 20-plus years do not support such causative relationship.

In fact, a recent systematic review and meta-analysis published in The Spine Journal seem to support the idea that the lack of lumbar lordotic curve angle (LLCA) is indicative of low back pain — that is, IF you only glance at the abstract. Researchers from Seoul, South Korea, reviewed 13 studies — which were only observational studies such as cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional — that totaled almost 800 low back pain subjects and 927 healthy controls. When the data are pooled together, they found that those with low back pain have a lower LLCA than those with no low back pain. (1) While this is generally what the researchers concluded, there is more to the story.

Athletes — especially those who perform activities like marathons and Tour de France — produce a huge amount of lactate compared to most non-athletes. (1) But since cancer cells thrive on lactate as their primary source of fuel, wouldn't that process increase ultramarathoners' and similar endurance athletes' risk of cancer?

A recent research published in Carinogenesis examined the role of lactate on cancer growth (San-Millán and Brooks). In one section of the paper, the authors from the University of Colorado School of Medicine reviewed how exercise and its adaptation could help increase lactate clearance in skeletal muscles, which could reduce the fueling to cancer cells. The authors identified lactate as a primary contributor to angiogenesis, metastasis, protection from the immune system, resisting cell death (apotosis), and sustained glycolysis. (2)